


Unwarranted Mercy

by miss_nettles_wife



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Character Death, F/F, Future Fic, Introspection, M/M, housekeeping, jason scott does things and is sad: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:18:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_nettles_wife/pseuds/miss_nettles_wife
Summary: Jason Scott is one of six. Or, at the moment, one of one. All going according to plan, that's how he intends for it to stay. Naturally, the universe has other plans.





	Unwarranted Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> it's odd, I didn't think about Power Rangers for a year, then about four things happened one after the other that made me think about this film again. So I wrote this fic I had on my mind when I was writing Flame Trees but didn't write because there's only so much room in the world for Jason Scott is sad and Does Things fics. Usual disclaimers apply, I've never seen any Power Rangers media other than the 2017 film, and one television special involving time travel and Santa, so all mistakes are both my own and unintentional.

Leaders aren’t meant to out live their teams.

That just isn’t how the story is meant to go.

But stories are just that, aren’t they? Stories. Passed on from one person to another, until the original is muddy and viewed through a lense of thick white condensation. Most of them aren’t even remembered. That’s how Jason wanted to end up, unremembered. A face in the crowd, a fish in the sea. Someone who wasn’t a someone. Seemed very romantic to him.

When he was younger and stupider, the boat moving under his feet had been disorienting. These days it was second nature. Being a ranger was about the same thing. At first, it was like he didn’t know how to move, and how to use his new strength. These days, being a Ranger is all he knew how to do, and he wasn’t sure what he would do if he lost it.

It seemed to him, on this temperate June night, that it didn’t much matter. If he died, it would be the same as everyone else: On his feet, protecting the Geo Crystal. The way that all Power Rangers were meant to go out. The way that he should have gone out dozens of times before. Yet, he has always managed to survive, even by the skin of his teeth. Even if he was running on nothing but instinct.

Over his head the moon was a tiny sliver in the sky, like someone was putting the lid back onto the jar of the universe. It was dark out, but he’s never had much of a problem with night vision since he got his power coin. He put both his arms on the railing, and gazed out to sea. It wasn’t a very rough night, which was good. In fact, one might even say it was unseasonably calm. Like the universe knows what he’s about to do and is egging him on. He’s never been one to turn down a challenge.

He stuck one hand into his pocket and produced three shiny power coins. Black, Pink, Yellow. He hadn’t meant to hold onto them all for so long but he didn’t know what would happen if he gave them up. Would he still be connected to the morph grid, or would he be forced to learn some other way to defend his home? Zordon has assured him that the Crystals don’t lie but he doesn’t really believe that. It had been easier to keep a hand on them.

Perhaps it was because he wanted to keep some of those memories for himself. Those good times that he won’t get to have again and even the bad ones too. He’s held onto Kim’s for the longest. He tried to give it to the one person who should have had it, Trini, but it kept coming back to his bedroom. To his pocket. To his locker. To anywhere that he might find it and know what on Earth to do with it. After a while, Trini stopped asking for it back . So he put it into a shoe box under his bed until he could figure out what to do with it. It only seemed fair to get rid of that one first. He threw it with all his might as far out into the ocean as he could. It landed so far away that he couldn’t even hear it hit the water.

The next was black. He held it up to the moon and let it shine through to him. Zack’s coin had been right there when he went down. Billy scooped it up while Jason tried to tear into what was left of the Zord. He’d never seen someone die in their armour before. He’d worried it might vanish and he’d have to explain it but it stayed put. Like it was able to tell that a rule would be broken if it left. Jason still had to explain it to his mother though. He’d thought he was prepared, but he wasn’t. It didn’t seem right, keeping secrets from her but what choice did he have?

 He came to see her every day, following the instructions set out by her doctor. She seemed to suspect there was something up but she didn’t ask him any questions about it. She held on for almost a year after and even started to get a bit better before travelling steadily downhill. When she died, they all pooled what they had for a decent funeral. Burying her next to Zack seemed like the least he could do. The black Power Coin turned up in the shoe box of it’s own accord that evening.

 Winding his arm back, he threw with all his might. It went further than pink, so far he couldn’t even see where it landed.

 Then there was the four of them, hanging on to what was left and trying to make lives for themselves. Jason tried to talk Billy into going to college, he was so smart and he deserved to have at least the change to learn. Billy wouldn’t hear of leaving Jason alone to protect Angel grove. But promised to take online courses. Secretly, Jason was grateful he stayed. Long distance relationships were hard and he wasn’t sure how he’d manage if he couldn’t see Billy every day.

 Trini did leave for college and Jason didn’t blame her. She wanted to get out of this little town and live her life. She wanted to move on. If the Morph Grid called her, she returned but never stayed for very long. Above all else, he wanted her to be happy.

 Tommy had always been something of a loose cannon, but it usually paid off. He started taking night classes and learning proper martial arts. It was good to have someone like that on the team. He took the time to teach Jason and Billy a few moves in the Pit when he had the time.

As for Jason….He stayed in Angel Grove and did exactly what his father told him not to do: Got work on a fishing boat. When he wasn’t fishing, he was taking care of Zack’s mother or spending time with Billy. They were saving up to get a place together which Jason found particularly exciting. Not that he didn’t like living with his family, but to be alone with the boy that you love? More than a little tempting.

Trini wasn’t the one he lost next, but she was the one whose Power coin he had. When it was with the pink coin, it lit up. He liked to think that was Trini and Kim telling him that they were together and that they were happy.

Trini had been pretty convinced about that. She’d fallen from the top of a building, or, been knocked off more like. It had been just the two of them, two of six, not even half. Not halfway near enough. Not enough Zords, not enough power. She’d been impaled on a piece of metal sticking up out of the ground. She’d been very calm about it, but he hadn’t, looking for something, anything to save her. Their armor had been glitching frequently, and it looked like she’d just been caught at the wrong moment. When the armor wasn’t quite solid.

  
“You can stop panicking, Jason. It’s okay.”

 It was not okay, she was impaled and did she not see that? He told her as much but she’d chuckled, the angle made the blood coming from her mouth and down her face.

 “Looks like I’m gonna see Kim a lot sooner than I planned.”

“I’ll find a way to fix this.”

 “No one, not even you could fix this. When I see her, I’ll try and use the Morph Grid to tell you.”

“Tri-“

 “I’m transporting.” She observed, as her hands began to fade in an out of reality. “To preserve the rule, I guess.”

“No one dies alone.” Jason said, as if he’d ever been able to keep that promise.

 “I’m not alone. You’re all here.”

Just like that, she was gone and a few days later he was invited by phone to her funeral. Her parents were desperate to know if it was an accident or suicide. He lied between his teeth and told them he hadn’t spoken to her in months. The power coin showed up on the dashboard of his car, and in a moment of madness; he used a rubber band to keep pink and yellow together. But now, he had to get rid of it. They’d burned through his shoe box and threatened to torch his home so they had to go.

 He held onto it tight for a moment. It was warm in his palm, upset at being separated from pink. This one, he lobbed only a small distance compared to the other two. Still much further than anyone else would have been able to throw it. It landed with a medium sized splash.

 He wasn’t a fool. He knew that they’d wash up eventually. He could only hope that he’d be gone by the time that they did.

 …

 Jason lived in a flat close to the outside of town. He referred to it as a flat, rather than an apartment because that was what it was advertised as when he came to look. It also sounded much posher than apartment though that was not specifically true.

Despite having lived here for some years now, he’d never bothered to unpack most of the boxes. He would tell any visitors he was blessed with that it was because he was just so busy between his online college classes, spending time with Billy’s mother and his job. The truth was that when he died, it would be less work for his family.

It wasn’t that he was especially looking forward to dying, only that he expects it sooner rather than later. He did unpack some things, though. Things he needed for everyday like clothes and pillows and such, and most of Billy’s things. This was the flat that they’d both planned to move into together. That they’d spent months, almost a year looking for. It fell right into their price range and was far enough away that anything going wayward wouldn’t be noticed right away.

 He dumped his bag onto the floor in the entryway and walked through to the open living space. He left the television on when he left for work, so he turned it off. It was an underwhelming little home, but it was clean and comfortable. He debated going right to bed, but figured that he should have something to eat first.

 He opened his fridge and examined the contents for a low energy meal. There was a plastic tub of some variety of easily and quickly cooked pasta that caught his eye. Not quite a homecooked meal, but tolerable enough. He put one of his few pots on the stove filled with water and a bit of salt before dividing the pasta into a half. Supposedly, it served two.

 While he waited for the water to boil, he browsed his sauce options. Cheap and in a jar it was. He couldn’t be bothered to cook that too and figured that hot pasta would warm it up. He looked at the coupons stuck to the fridge with magnets and began weeding out the expired ones. Most of them were gifted to him by Candace, who was always concerned about if he was getting enough to eat. He didn’t quite understand why mothers were like that but his would be (he presumed, he didn’t know the woman) the same.

 He discarded coupons for barbecue sauce, anchovies, pickles in brine, Halloween candy and milk. He was annoyed about the last one, he did try to use the ones for the necessities. The others…He was less picky about. He also threw out an invitation to a party he had been too, and a broken magnet shaped like a tooth.

 By the time dinner was done and the dishes were stacked in the sink, he was ready to turn the television back on. He sat on the couch (cheap from IKEA, cheaper still because it was a floor model) and flicked it back on, bowl in his lap. His coffee table has a huge scorch mark on it from the coins telling him to dispose of them. After some flicking, he settled on a telemovie called _‘Concrete Canyons’_. Food finished, he turned it off before finding out if the man was ever going to clear his sons name (he wasn’t that invested) and carried his bowl to the sink.

 He showered (to be sure he didn’t smell like fish) and then went to bed. Well, to the bedroom at least. He hadn’t made the bed before he left for work, so he put the fitted sheet back on properly. He thrashed around a lot in his sleep these days. Never used to but did, all of a sudden about a year ago. Then, Jason took the time to lay the sheets out and rearrange the pillows. He grabbed a pair of pajama pants out of his drawer and put them on slowly, taking his time to gather himself, as per usual.

 Then, he did what he always did before he went to bed in his own home. He morphed, then, he lay down, and shut his eyes. He focused on the grid as hard as he could. He could sense two others on the grid. One green, one blue. Eyes shut tight, he started with green. Speaking across the grid was hard, but that didn’t mean Jason wasn’t going to try.

He concentrated on Tommy as hard as he could, trying to tell him to come home. That whatever was wrong be it Rita or something else was fixable. He understood the desire to run and leave but there was still something. There was always something and he had to come back. As per usual, there was no reply from him, not even a flicker to acknowledge Jason was there. But he took comfort in knowing that at least he was still alive. He concentrated as hard as he could for as long as he could before opening his eyes and looking up at the ceiling.

 He didn’t know how he still had access to the grid when they weren’t all in sync. Perhaps death was being in sync. Zordon had said something about how much he cared being enough but he didn’t buy that for a second. There was something he wasn’t being told but he was wise enough by now to know that no answers would be forth coming.

 Then, he lay still for a while and let his mind wander. Billy comes to mind, like he usually does. It’s funny. He doesn’t even have solid proof that he and Billy would have been able to make it. No proof that their something would have been anything after they moved in together. But he’s always on Jason’s mind. His father said love is a bit like that but Jason doesn’t know if it’s still love or if now it’s guilt. His mind lingers on the details of his face. It’s probably not his face anymore, but it’s the face Jason knows from the photographs he’s kept. It’s the only one Jason knows. He remembers what he sounds like; because he has no shortage of videos of him.

He should have moved on by now. The police have deemed him an adult who left home of his own accord. He should have found another boy, or another girl, and moved on. Billy's mother asks him, on occasion when she can expect grandkids and Jason doesn’t have an answer for her. His step mother has tried to set him up on dates that he humors but never goes back for another round with.

The truth of it was, it didn’t feel right to move on when Billy couldn’t. It didn’t feel right to move on when Billy was trapped in some government facility somewhere being poked and prodded. There was an element of guilt, of course. Jason hadn’t been able to protect him. Not from that, and not from anything else either. What good was a leader when he couldn’t even protect the person he cared about most?

 What good was he at all?

He couldn’t protect Kim from being electrocuted, either. He’d been so close to her that it could have easily have been him. It should have been him. A knocked over power pole just happened to graze her bare arm. They weren’t even fighting, they were trying to help bring people to the makeshift hospital in town. One moment she was here, and then she wasn’t.

Hadn’t protected Zack. He’d been protecting Trini, who was being reckless. It was Jason’s team, he should have been protecting her not him. The last thing Jason can remember him saying is

  
“Watch out, Crazy Girl.”

 Then nothing. He was there, and then he wasn’t.

  
Couldn’t protect Tommy from Rita, when he vanished at first they thought he was playing hookey. Looking back, Jason can see the signs, but hind sight is always twenty-twenty. He was gone now, he probably thought that he was protecting them from her. He didn’t need protecting, he needed to be the protector. He was the leader, that was he job.   


He couldn’t protect Trini, he could have. He should have told her to stay back and let him handle it. The suits weren’t fully powered, if someone was going to go down it should be him. But she insisted on coming, like she always did. She resented his attempts to protect her but that didn’t stop him from trying all the same.

  
Billy…He couldn’t protect Billy. If one of them was being experimented on, it should be him. He doesn’t know what they’ve done to him, but he knows it’s bad. He can’t think of any other reason why Billy would opt to not talk to him.

  
He closed his eyes again, and summoned up the Morph Grid. This time, he followed along to the blue dot, which was shiny and bright and enticing. Rather than send a generic message, though he had done that at first, he tried to think of something else.

 “I got rid of the other Power Coins, they burned my tabletop. Do you remember that first day, when we put them down in the cafeteria and they started boiling the drinks and food? I do. We had no idea what was about to happen and what we were about to go through but I’m glad we did. I’m really glad we did. I’m happy about it because I know for a fact that I got to be with you. Even if it wasn’t forever. I hope they’re treating you okay, wherever you are. I spent some time with your mother. She misses you and I think she knows about the Power Ranger thing. She hasn’t mentioned it to me but I think she knows. I- Good night, Billy.“

 He stopped, and let his suit fall away. He didn’t know what else to say. He lay there for a long time watching the roof. He had no proof Billy could even hear him. He might as well be screaming into the void. Maybe he was. He pulled the quilt down and slid underneath. The pillows were well worn under his head. He wasn’t that comfortable but it was enough.

 That was just how things were now, enough. They had to be.

 …

He knew the Power Coins had found their way into new hands the moment it happened. Out of nowhere, pink, yellow and black re-appeared on the Morph Grid, as though they’d always been there. He’d been watching television in his living room, when it happened. He put the football game he was watching on pause and tried to suss out if he was dreaming or not.

He’d had a lot of dreams that went like this. Dreams about being wrong. Dreams about his friends coming back. Dreams about them being a family again. But, they’re always just dreams.

He shut his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. Then, reaching into his pocket, he closed a fist around his Power Coin. Transporting was an imperfect science. He’d lost track of the times that he’d accidentally ended up falling down into the water above the base, instead of actually in the base. He’d asked Alpha Five about it and been told that it was because there was so little power on the grid because there was three out of six people using it. He knew that the power from the coins would lead the new rangers to the ship, and he figured he should be there to give them the news himself.

He glanced around the boat, shut his eyes and focused. He’d never have a good way to describe the way transport felt, like he weighed a ton and nothing at the same time. When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the middle of the main room. It was better than being damp all the time. When they first started coming here the place always stank like wet towels that had been left somewhere for far too long.

 No one was going to miss him if he hung around here for a while waiting. It took him and his friends only a few hours to arrive, after they died and all that. They’d worked on opening up the other wings of the ship to have a proper bathroom, a dormitory and a sort of relaxation room. It was good for hanging around, also good for staying somewhere if you’ve had a really bad fight with your father over something that doesn’t really matter.

 “New rangers.” Zordon said, as soon as the world stopped spinning and Jason stopped feeling like he was going to throw up.

 “Do you know what they’ll be like?”

  “No.”

  “Will they be able to access the morph grid if I’m still on it?”

  “They should be able to. Think of yourself as a door, if you let them onto the grid than they should be able to get on.”

  “What if they hate each other?”

  “They won’t, the coins are never wrong.” Jason doesn’t believe that for one second but refuses to say anything about it to Zordons face. He doesn’t say much of anything to Zordons face anymore, what is there to say?

  
‘You’ve made me into a weapon, you did this to me.’ Didn’t exactly seem like it was going to fly, did it? He instead crossed into one of the dormitories and sat at a table. It was exactly how Billy had left it, but dustier. He didn’t want to touch anything that belonged to him in case he ruined it and when Billy came back, he was upset. It was stupid and irrational but it helped him keep hope when he didn’t have a lot of it.

He started to pick up pens coated in thick layers of dust and wipe them off on his jeans. One by one, he slotted them back into their rightful places, how Billy would have liked it. Then, the plans. He wasn’t sure what they were for. A quick study suggested to him that it was some way to make transport more stable. But that was all he could make out, it might as well have been written in Greek for all his understanding of it. He rolled it up in a tube and then tried to find a rubber band in a nearby jar (conveniently labelled ‘rubber bands’) that wasn’t cracked. He was about to slide it into the Pigeon hole labelled ‘Billy’ in red ink, but then decided against it. Instead, he found a cardboard box still hidden under a bed from some of the Ikea furniture he and Zack had struggled to put together to make the place a little more ‘boho space ship’.

 He dropped the plans, and the name tag in there. Then, he grabbed the pink ‘Trini’ and ‘Kim’ tags and felt around in the little cubbies for any notes. Nothing in Trini’s, but in Kim's there was a developed picture that someone had put there before she died. He recognized it as their first meal at the rebuilt Krispy Kreme. He put it down on the desk rather than in the box. He vaguely remembered Trini agreeing to clear her stuff out, she must have missed it. Then Zack's stuff, it was empty, Jason already cleared it out when he died. Billy had a few similarly rolled pieces of paper in his. Jason examines them and found them all to be other versions of the one he already put in the box. He then removed the red ‘Zack’ tag, and chucked it into the box. He left his own name tag in place.

Holding the box with one arm, he wandered to the laundry room. Or, the room where they hung things to dry. Jason had, admittedly, let the place fall into disrepair after Trini died. He rarely came in here and did a quick look over to make sure there was nothing left behind from the others. He found one yellow bra and a pair of black pants, which both went into the box too.

  
He then checked the bathroom for misplaced toothbrushes and found none. He made sure that there were the appropriate hygiene items in the drawers for any new Ranger who might need them. He wasn’t the type of person who thought a great deal about that thought of thing before Kim informed him that it was bad form not to have some, especially if entrance into the damn place involved going for a swim. If he was more forward thinking, he might have grabbed new stuff to fill the place with. He grabbed a box of tampons (very bright and colourfully wrapped) and found them woefully out of date.

 There was no sign of the new rangers.

 He put the box bag, and then carried the Ikea box (for something called a ‘Brusali’) back to the main room. He set it down next to Alpha Five who had been trailing after him and Jason had been solidly ignoring.

 “Look after this.” He said, “I’m going to go buy some new stuff to spruce the place up.” Before the robot could explain, Jason transported himself back to Angel Grove.

  
He thought about it again, and then transported himself to a mall in a neighbouring town. It was safer here and since it was for his new team, it wasn’t using it for his own good. Bending the rules was easy when you knew how. He wandered out of the mens room and into the main part of the mall, before slipping into a nearby chemist.

 He purchased two fully stocked first aid kits, compression socks, tampons, a box of pads (the brand was the same as the ones in the ship, so they were Trini approved), throat lozenges, a handful of foundation bottles in light, medium and dark (for covering facial bruises), makeup sponges (also fantastic for arrow cleaning up blood), packages of electrolyte drinks and a selection of jellybeans that just so happened to be on sale.

 He also made his way into a shop offering cheap beach towels and collected a few in various colours. By various, he of course meant red, green, blue, black, pink and yellow. He likes doing menial tasks like this, where he doesn’t have to think much. It’s good to get away from himself for a while. After much consideration he also added new dish soap and garbage bags to his list.

Loaded up with stuff, he found a quiet spot out of the way of any cameras, and returned to the ship.

 To his immense relief, still no sign of the new rangers. It was much how he left it. He didn’t know what Alpha Five did when he wasn’t annoying Jason, but he’d put money on Annoying Zordon.

 “Jason, you’re back!”

  
“I am.”

“I watched the box for you.”

“Thank you.” He said, putting his stuff down and grabbing a garbage bag. “Can you please set this towels out for the new Rangers?”

“Certainly!”

 That would at least keep him off of Jasons back while he finished his cleaning out. He grabbed his Ikea box, and set back at it in the bathroom. Out with the expired goods, and in with the new stuff. He traveled to the kitchen, disposed of anything out of date (there wasn’t much, he and Trini did a big clean out before she died) and put in the new soap and the rest of the garbage bags. In the box, he put in their colored coffee cups that he doesn’t think he can bare to see anyone else drink from, excluding his own. Certain the place was a bit more hospitable now, he took the Ikea box, and in thick black letters wrote ‘PRIVATE’ on it, before putting it into a storage room.

 The garbage went into the furnace.

  
Still no sign of the new rangers.

 He returned to the dormitory and stripped the sheets from the beds in quick motions. They were well overdue for a change anyway, he decided. He threw them into an Ikea ‘Torkis’, and grabbed new sheets from the cupboard. They were all taken from their childhood homes, and mismatched. One had a garish paisley print, one was plain green, one white and the last with a cheerful sunflower print.

  
As he fluffed the final pillow, he heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway. They were here. He stopped to check his hair in the mirror by the door, before walking out to the main room to wait for them. He tried to calm his beating heart.

 There was three of them, all about highschool age and all of them far far to young to be put in this position. They were looking at him, and he was looking at them.

  
“You’re Jason Scott.” One of them, a girl says.

 “Who’s Jason Scott?” One of the boys inquires.

 “He’s-“

 “A let down.” Jason finished for her, folding his arms defensively over his chest. The girl blushed suddenly, and Jason knew he hit the nail on the head. His relationship with Angel Grove was tenuous but it was only a matter of time before he was forgot. He was almost there, she was the first in a while to notice, and even longer to care.

“What are you doing here? Do you know what’s going on?” The other, the first boy wearing a blue shirt asked. Behind him, Zordons wall exploded into colour. They kids eyes all but exploded out of their heads at the image and Jason didn’t blame them. It really was a sight to see, and sometimes his cynicism refused to let him see that.

 “You are the Power Rangers.” He said, dramatically.

 “Who are you?” He asked, frowning.

“I am Zordon and –“

 “I am Alpha Five!” Alpha Five said, helpfully. The kids looked between each other and back to Jason. He’d wandered away to find a wall to lean on and take the strain off his knee. It still hurt sometimes, even all these years later.

“You already know who I am.”

“The Power Rangers. We’re superheros.

He had to admit it to himself, they were handling it a lot better than his team had. That was wrong. His first team had, if being a Power Ranger had taught him anything it was now they were his team. He was certain he’d have to get to know them too, so they could morph. They’d have to work as a unit. He’d have to use his much maligned leadership bone.

 Seemed cruel to him. Make them care about each other when there was only one thing waiting for them. His team, and these kids too. He smiled anyway.

 “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life.”

 


End file.
